Some Old School Rails & Gassers

I love the whitewall slicks and the Toppolino.

Here are some of my GMP Dragsters and two 1933 Willy's the black one is by ACME and the blue one is by Precision Miniatures. 

Hey Chris!  That's a nice collection of vintage top fuel dragsters!  The fuel altereds are cool, too!  

@john3976 - You have a nice collection of vintage AA/FDs as well.  I didn't know that many Garlits rails were in scale.  

I have a total of 6 1/18 GMP Swamp Rat dragsters. Swamp Rat 1, Swamp Rat 1B, Swamp Rat III, Swamp Rat VI, Swamp Rat VII and Swamp Rat VIII. Swamp Rat VIII was the first time Garlits used the 426 Hemi, while using the 426 he was not able to get the same performance out of it as the 392 Hemi, it got to the point Garlits decided to intentionally blow up the 426 Hemi and switch back the 392 Hemi. Chrysler no longer made the 392 Hemi and wanted Garlits to switch to the new 426 Hemi.

Garlits had been using the same tunes that they used for the 392 Hemi and they just were not able to get the same performance. Garlits had enough and decided to blow up the 426 Hemi and switch back to the 392 Hemi. So Garlits advanced the timing to something like 30 degrees BTC and he said the engine was cackling as he was doing his burn out and pulling up to the line. He ran his fastest run ever on that run and the 426 Hemi did not blow up but he was determined to blow up the engine so the next run he advanced the timing to I believe it was 40 degrees BTC, Garlits said the engine was cackling so much his crew after starting it would not get next to the engine because they were afraid it was going to blow up any second, Garlits ran even faster that run and that is when Garlits discovered the 426 likes a lot of timing to make it run. Today they run as much as 51 degrees BTC when they come off the line then the timing backs down during the run. 

Garlits said that the first time they advanced the timing on the 426 Hemi would have blown up a 392 Hemi. So Garlits found out how to tune the 426 Hemi by accident while trying to blow it up so he could switch back to the proven 392 Hemi. The rest is history.